Spheres

GHA Sphere Engineers

The man stood, his steel blue eyes locked on the barrel of the gun trained at him. He seemed unafraid, almost completely detached form his surroundings. The pirate flinched as his hand shook a bit, unlike the man he was holding at gunpoint, he looked like he was about to loose his nerve.

“I said sit down and shut the fuck up!” He boomed finally, after seconds of silence which seemed more like minutes to the hostages watching the exchange.“No.” The man answered. He was frozen in place, his gaze now locked on the pirate. “What you are doing is wrong. You are threatening the entire ship. I cannot let your crew-mates endanger the lives of the people here, they will fail to break the safeguards on the cargo. They will die. We will die as well, because no one will be able to free us. I must leave this room now, while there is still time.”“Fuck you.”

The pirate fired his pistol. A flash of The man he was aiming at remained as he was. A flash of light moved between him and the gun just as it was fired. Another flash pierced the pirates chest. For a moment, the pirate looked surprised, his face quickly turned to horror. He collapsed to the floor after a few seconds, a pool of blood forming under him. The man leaned over him and touched his forehead.

“I am sorry. But you wouldn’t listen.” Two orbs, a bit bigger then a human fist moved to hover over the man. One of them was covered with the pirates blood, having gone through him. The man stood up and faced the other hostages. “I must go and stop them. Interface with the ship and make sure they do not seal our fate. You will be rescued soon.”

Fragment of light popular novel Engineer.

There is no greater symbol of the symbiosis between man and machine within the GHA then the Sphere Engineers. Just like the Spec Ops of the UEN, they are surrounded by both fascination and fear by the general population.

In essence, a Sphere Engineer is a direct agent of the Guardian, one that coordinates and protects GHA interests in all parts of space. Typically all GHA ships and colonies have at least one Engineer as part of their crew, but they never reveal themselves as such unless it is absolutely necessary.

The Spheres, symbols of both the Guardian and the Engineers are, in essence, small AI cores powered by technology created by whatever race created the Guardian itself. They are made of an alloy that is able to resist most conventional weaponry save doomsday level explosions. They also seem to be able to generate a localized subspace field that lets them defy laws of gravity. While sometimes they are used as weapons – they can pierce most materials including ship hulls, Engineers usually consider such application as a last resort if at all. The primary function of the Spheres is either being used as a construction tool – they can weld, solder, program etc. or as a tool to interface with machines. A Sphere can connect to most machines and take direct control of them within minutes, overriding their functions completely and giving full access to the Engineer. Some UEN systems, including those used in major starships, utilize a special safeguard to protect against this – Spheres have a distinct signal characteristic which if picked up by modern UEN systems triggers a system wide alarm and shuts down compromised sections of a computer system. Most starship systems are also decentralized for that reason.

Sphere Engineers themselves are usually genetically modified, pre conditioned children, although there are several confirmed cases of non-modified GHA citizens becoming engineers later in their life. An Engineer undergoes years of special training finished by a surgical procedure that inserts an implant that links an Engineer to his Spheres. Since the Spheres are complex AI-like systems, they require rigorous training to maintain and be controlled. Typically a given Engineer cannot be linked to more then 2, but some exceptional individuals are known to be able to use 3 Spheres at once. Since both the Spheres and their Engineers maintain a constant feedback loop that works both ways, they tend to have a cold, controlled demeanor, however this is as much a cultural and social norm as it is an actual requirement to master the Spheres – there are examples of Engineers in the past, especially non pre modified ones that were quite temperamental and still excelled at using Spheres.

It is estimated that tens of thousands of Spheres remain directly under the control of the Guardian on the GHA homeworld, but for the most part that is speculation. It is not clear how the Guardian acquired the Spheres or how are they produced. To date, no one was able to successfully hack or reverse engineer a Sphere in any way or form.

SE Character Guidelines:

SE have to be GHA born and raised. They need to be members of the GHA military structure and have undergone at least 4 years of training in maintenance of the Spheres.

SE are closely monitored and actively inflicting hurt, breaking GHA laws or otherwise abusing their Spheres will result in deactivation of their controller chip and dismissal form the Engineer corp.

SE are usually skilled in engineering or other practical sciences. They are also known to pursue other academic interests.

In exchange, SE gain access to Spheres (obviously) which can be effective weapons against small groups of foes as well as indispensable in flash repairs and hacking of equipotent.